A History of Deconstructed Sneakers That Came Before Virgil Abloh’s Nike Collection

There’s no doubting that Virgil Abloh’s Off-White x Nike collection has been the biggest collaboration of 2017, and it’s the deconstructed designs of the shoes that have made the shoes a success. Virgil isn’t the first designer to strip a sneaker down, though, and the folks over at High Snobiety broke down some footwear could have, possibly, led up to the Off-White project.

Writer Calum Gordon visits the inspirations behind sneakers from Margiela, Nike and Tom Sachs, Solebox and Adidas, and Kendrick Lamar and Reebok to trace back the industry’s obsession with shoes that are stripe to their core — or at least dressed down a bit.